back to article Unemployed offered money to watch grass grow

Those among you who believe it's your human right to be paid to "read, tweet, surf the internet, check your email and sunbathe" should get your lazy arses into this job, which is offering hard cash to someone to do just that. The Husqvarna Automatic Lawnmower Supervisor job advert For those of you not au fait with the …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. James Micallef Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Nice work for an unemployed lad in Spain if you can get it! The pay on offer is quite pants but given the 50% unemployment for youths there, better than nothing.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Meh

      Yeah but no, but yeah

      Yeah if you ignore the ageismistic job requirements "aged between 25 and 35"

      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: Yeah but no, but yeah

        Not just ageist, but counter-productive. I bet if they widened their net to allow students they could find someone who'd do it for less dosh.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Quite pants?

      up to £1700 a month for doing absolutely fuck all?

      I got much less than that when I worked for ladbrokes as a student.

      1. Tom 38

        Re: Quite pants?

        £1700 for a single month. Not per month.

        1. Darryl
          Headmaster

          Re: Quite pants?

          Well, technically one month at £1700 is £1700 per month.

          1. Tom 38
            Headmaster

            Re: Quite pants?

            Only for the first month.

            1. tmTM

              Re: Quite pants?

              £1700 is £1700 whichever way you cut it, and if it's earnt facebooking sat in the sun on some freshly cut grass then well done to the successful applicant.

              1. Tchou

                Re: Quite pants?

                1700£ before or after tax?

                I think in spain it makes a 30% diference.

          2. Andy Fletcher

            Re: Quite pants?

            Darryl, you are technically correct. The best kind of correct.

            1. Danny 14

              Re: Quite pants?

              I suspect it will be a PR stunt therefore they will be looking for photogenic people too.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sounds like the old Your Sinclair joke game "Advanced Lawnmower Simulator".

    And it's playable at http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekplay.cgi?title=Advanced+Lawnmower+Simulator&pub=Your+Sinclair&year=1988&id=0000089&game=/games/a/AdvancedLawnmowerSimulator.tap.zip&emu=3&aspect=3

  3. Irongut

    And Spain wonders why it's economy is fucked.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      it's called 'advertising'.

      And it's cheap at 2,100 euros.

  4. mark 63 Silver badge
    Stop

    share on facebook???

    this smells more of a publicity stunt or some kind of traffic manipulation sceme, or data gathering phishing scam

    or is that normal now?

    If who's gonna pay for the IT guy that makes sure he is equipped to do such updates?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "this smells more of a publicity stunt"

      ...Sherlock spoketh

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Council outsources to Husqvarna for a man and his lawnmower

    Husqvarna remembers they make automated lawnmowers and thinks "Hey, they didn't say he actually has to drive the thing"?

  6. Desk Jockey

    Age descrimination

    What I am puzzled about is why they are descriminating on the basis of age? It is not exactly as if an OAP or a 16 year old could not do the job while reading the newspaper or browsing their phone/tablet! Going to have to do better than that if you don't want the EU regs breathing down your neck! Being currently unemployed/low earner would be a better discriminator...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Age descrimination

      Their job is to stop the mower getting stolen perhaps?

      1. Desk Jockey

        Re: Age descrimination

        A valid suggestion. But then, this needs to be in the job description. As it stands, a 25-35 wheelchair user is entitled to apply. (I have nothing against them at all btw!)

        It is just shoddy. But maybe I should expect this from a Spanish local council...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Age descrimination

      "What I am puzzled about is why they are descriminating on the basis of age?"

      It's always been a common thing in Spain, same as gender discrimination. I'd bet this ad was not posted by Husqvarna (sp?) directly but by a local PR/marketing company. Even though the laws have been updated, not many locals have caught up with the times in the job discrimination front.

      Not stereotyping the Spaniards btw, just speaking from intimate(!) knowledge.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Age descrimination

        >Not stereotyping the Spaniards btw, just speaking from intimate(!) knowledge

        I'll confirm that. I've always got my jobs by word of mouth so I've not had to deal with the age thing directly however when skimming the job site offers to see the state of things most are looking for someone still in nappies with 20 years experience of something that hasn't been released yet

    3. Evil Auditor Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Age descrimination

      No, it's not age discrimination, it's simply preselection: They need someone willing to use FarceBook, i.e. that person will definitely not be older than 35. They need someone who's got a basic grasp of the language, i.e. a person over 25*.

      (*assuming education in Spain is not much better than over here)

      1. Arbuthnot Darjeeling

        Re Re: Age descrimination

        definitely not be older than 35? Lol.

        er, dude, I'm like totally over 50, ftw, and I can watch grass being cut better than some kid. ROFLMAO

        You know, there are some people I would definitely not employ for this and they are all, believe me, under 35

        1. Evil Auditor Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: Re Age descrimination

          >and I can watch grass being cut better than some kid.

          So can I! But that was not quite the point...

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Grasp of language

        Whoa there, you seem to suggest that becoming 25 years old suddenly means that someone magically becomes better at language skills...

        In my experience, this is certainly not the case. I have worked with many individuals 25+, 30+, 50+; some of them are professors and world-leading in their field. Very few of them can write effectively in their primary language.

  7. Dr Dan Holdsworth
    Thumb Up

    An automatic lawnmower...

    Also known as a sheep?

    They're paying somebody to sit and watch sheep?

    1. Gene Cash Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: An automatic lawnmower...

      If you go to the mfgr site (http://www.husqvarna.com/us/products/robotic-mowers/husqvarna-robotic-mowers-for-homeowners/) guess what they have a picture of...

      1. Graham Bartlett

        Re: An automatic lawnmower...

        Maybe it's just me, but doesn't $3K seem a lot to spend on a lawnmower? You can easily get a bloke to do it for twenty quid (say thirty dollars). That gets you 100 lawn-mows for the same price, which I suspect is more than you'd get out of the robot lawnmower before something important went wrong with it.

    2. Bucky 2

      Re: An automatic lawnmower...

      If you put lipstick on that sheep, then you've got to pay the sheep, too, so it's probably a break-even proposition.

  8. MartinSullivan

    Watch Sheep?

    @Dr Dan Holsworth Try http://zois.com/CGI61178

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Err...

    Isn't the job paying someone to watch grass being cut, not to watch grass grow?

  10. TeeCee Gold badge
    Mushroom

    They want what?

    ".... sharing his or her scintillating lawnmower supervising experiences on Husqvarna's local Facebook presence."

    WTF? Obliging the use of Facebook and only offering 1700EUR a month? Someone's having a right giraffe....

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Awwwwww......

    What, EVERY day?

    (cue Kevin & Perry style teenstrop)

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What they are being hired for is to watch a new lawnmower cut grass with little or no user interaction. This is not as strange as it sounds.Many companies hire people to do nothing but test their products. I work near a local Husqvarna corp headquarters and sometimes have to go there for business. One thing I see is them hiring local kids to do nothing but ride lawn mowers around in a circle all day. After so many hundreds of hours, they check to see what is worn out, how things are holding up. Go to any producer of outdoor products and you will find the same thing. It's better than letting people buy products and use them as testers (Iphone anyone?)

    It's really not all that unusual, hell companies hire people to sit on their @$$ and watch computers all day, I think it's called "IT", and they don't even get any sun! Zing!!!

  13. This post has been deleted by its author

  14. Glenn Charles
    Happy

    I read El Reg

    Do I qualify?

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like